Joe Wilmers, a school social worker at Winton Hills Academy, tracks student absenteeism in Cincinnati Public Schools. / The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger

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The top reasons kids miss school

Illness

Parents who are chronically ill have difficulty getting their child to school regularly and on time. If the child is chronically ill, they may be more apt to miss due to being sick or having doctor appointments. Urban public schools usually see a large number of chronic health issues ranging from asthma to diabetes, to obesity. Moving

Some families, especially those in poverty, tend to move a lot. They may move due to foreclosure, eviction or family crisis. Often when a family moves, the child is out of school for several days. The academic and emotional toll is significant, studies show. Poverty

Poverty brings a host of problems that cause kids to miss school: Lack of reliable transportation; no money for school clothes; or parents working more than one job or overnight shifts who are unable to get their children on the bus in the morning. Many are also single parents without a safety net. Safety

Some students stay home or leave class early to avoid bullying or other social problems. Some may not feel safe on the bus or on the walk to school. Motivation

Some students are chronically absent simply because their family hasn’t made education a priority. If parents didn’t grow up with attendance being a priority, they may not stress the importance to their children. But being even 10 minutes late every day can put a child behind. Foster care

On any given day there are about 900 Hamilton County children in foster care and 764 in Northern Kentucky. They make up a big chunk of the mobile or absent students. They miss school because they often move from one foster home to another and are constantly dealing with crises and uncertainty at home.

But too often in high-poverty districts – Cincinnati, Newport, across the country – that’s exactly what happens.

“We know the most important thing for academic achievement is to be there,” says Wilmers, who works for Cincinnati Public Schools. Yet he keeps seeing the same students come in late. Or he doesn’t see them at all, sometimes for days at a time, he said. Others disappear altogether.

Until recently, little was being done to even assess the problem. Only six states report chronic absenteeism rates. Ohio and Kentucky aren’t among them, though some districts and schools do track it.

The absence of good information makes the problem much harder to fix. Indeed, the very lack of statistics sparked a recent battle between Cincinnati Public Schools and the state auditor’s office after a state investigation accused the district of “scrubbing” its attendance data to improve its state report card, a charge CPS disputes.

But in just the past year or so, a host of local programs have taken root to address absenteeism head on.

Mobility, absenteeism reach critical levels

Nationwide, the problem is dire. Chronic absenteeism and high mobility rates are among the biggest predictors of student graduation rates, studies show. The two issues strike at the heart of many of the academic problems plaguing urban districts.

A first-of-its-kind study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute recently found that mobility verges on “epidemic” in many local districts. At Winton Hills Academy, one of the schools in which Wilmers works, almost half of the students enrolled in 2009 weren’t there two years later, the study said.

Chronic absenteeism – kids missing more than 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days – is just as big a problem as mobility, according to reports from states or districts that track that data. In 2011-12, more than 2,300 K-3 students in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky fell into that category, according to the fledgling Read On! Attendance Collaborative. The coalition of non-profit education and community groups is starting to track absenteeism for the first time.

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In the Covington school district, nearly 10 percent of kids in some elementary schools are considered chronically absent.

Ken Kippenbrock, director of pupil personnel, tries to find them.

“I’ll go to pull up a kid in the school (computer) system because they weren’t there and they don’t even have a photo because they weren’t there on picture day. And they weren’t there for it the year before that, or the year before that.”

For students, the ramifications of inaction can be dire.

A widespread problem; no easy answers

A May 2012 report on absenteeism by Johns Hopkins University and Get Schooled, a non-profit education group, estimated that up to 7.5 million of the nation’s students are chronically absent.

Newport is among the districts nationwide that track absenteeism.

“I have students who are absent fully a quarter of the school year,” said Mike Wills, the district’s director of pupil personnel.

Wilmers, the Cincinnati social worker, tries to track missing kids down by phone. When that doesn’t work, he goes to their homes.

He’s heard every excuse in the book for why students stay away, ranging from lack of transportation to illness. Some are legitimate, some aren’t.

The most common reasons are illness, a move, poverty and its associated stresses, bullying, foster care or simple lack of motivation.

Sometimes a problem is easy to fix. It’s not uncommon for kids to miss school because they don’t have any clean clothes. So some schools provide uniforms for students who can’t afford them. Wilmers shows kids how to hand wash their shirts. Some schools have washers and dryers on site.

Other times it’s not so easy, especially as school budgets contract.

Wilmers used to be at Winton Hills, which has a 94 percent poverty rate, every day. Now, because of budget cuts, he’s there only three days a week, rotating to other schools on other days.

When he retires at the end of the school year, he won’t be replaced.

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'Everyone's life isn't easy'

Vanessa Bailey’s kids have missed more than a few days of school.

She’s a single mother of four, including three at Winton Hills Academy. Her kids miss school a lot because of health issues – their own and their mom’s. They’ve also switched schools several times in the past few years because of various crises.

Bailey, 33, said people are quick to judge her. But she says she’s doing the best she can.

“People don’t understand the situation,” she said. “Everyone’s life isn’t easy. It’s not just handed to everyone on a silver spoon. There’s a lot more to it than just giving them a tardy slip.”

School social workers try to keep tabs on parents, like Bailey, who are struggling. Her kids haven’t missed enough to be considered chronically absent this year, but they’re close.

Search for solutions yields hope for future relief

Recently, programs have emerged to stabilize families and get kids to school.

• A new regional initiative is for the first time starting to track chronic absentee data for Cincinnati, Newport and Covington. The Attendance Collaborative stemmed from the Read On! campaign that focuses on improving third-grade reading levels. The campaign was created by a group of 15 service providers in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky and aims to reduce absenteeism at 46 targeted schools in the region.

• The Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services has launched a 130-student pilot program called Kids in School Rule to keep foster kids in the same school even if they change foster homes.

ProKids in Cincinnati works with students in the foster care system.

“Foster care children have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country. They are usually on the arc to drop out unless we stop it,” said Tracy Cook, executive director.

• The Newport school district has stepped up involvement of its resource centers – school-based centers that connect families and at-risk students with services to help keep them in school.

No 'silver bullet'

Educators say the fix for chronic absenteeism and mobility isn’t simple or easy. But the important thing, they said, is to make it a community-wide issue, not just a problem that the schools, the foster care system or the social workers are tackling in isolation.

Cook, of ProKids, says community involvement is critical.

“At the end of the day, people can get really overwhelmed and say ‘holy cow, this is such a big problem’ and it is,” she said. “But don’t be overwhelmed. Maybe you can’t save all the kids in the system but you can say ‘I can save this one.’ If we have an army come forward, there’s no stopping us.” ⬛